Rio+20 failed to deliver the energy
revolution needed and governments from Canada to Venezuela acted as voice
pieces for their fossil fuel industries at the Summit. Meanwhile, bodies as
varied as the International
Energy Agency or the Australian
Climate Commision acknowledge that the vast majority of fossil fuel
reserves must stay in the ground. Rio+20´s failure increased the need for a
global movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground. And that movement, too, is
growing - and growing fast. Bill McKibben tells the story of it´s rise in a seminal
Rolling
Stone piece; the movement´s movie is online here; next week, 500+
leaders will gather at the Global Power
Shift meeting in Istanbul – probably the most important climate event of the
year. All of you can join the global resistance against fossil fuels: Pledge to
end the age of coal and join the International Day of Action on Coal
on June 29th.

As Rio+20 failed to make decisive decisions, the
political progress report one year after Rio is mostly about processes. But
even there, there are signs of movement building. As you may recall, we put
governments under a lot of pressure to move
forward on protecting the High Seas at Rio. As a result, governments will
decide on the future governance of the High Seas by 2014 at the latest. France is
championing the „Oceans
Constitution“ we need. To support their efforts they have launched a global,
public call to protect the High Seas. Some members of the global elite have
already understood the need to end the plunder of the High Seas. I used to campaign
against the likes of ex World Trade Organization head, Pascal Lamy. But
that someone like him supports the new Global Oceans Commission and
their call for proper governance on the High Seas is encouraging. It doesn´t
inpspire me like people on the streets of Rio or Istanbul. But it does give me
hope that – with enough political pressure – we may yet get the
right political outcome for the High Seas in 2014. Help us build the
pressure by signing
our call.

Governments at Rio argued that the launch
of a three year process to develop Sustainable
Development Goals was a major breakthrough. And so it would be, if these
goals were to enshrine important global goals – such as protecting the Arctic
for all. However, as governments spent months arguing over who should be on the
working group (some 70 nations now share 30 official slots ...), the best that
can be said is that this global conversation is now - finally - under way. We
hope the Co-Chairs will be bold – and not as timied as the High
Level Panel on the (parallel) post-2015 development agenda.

A year after Rio, I feel less exhausted
than I did after that negotiations marathon. I feel as angry as ever about our
governments failing to take the decisive action we need. But I am truly inspired
by the movements for a just, fair and sustainable world that do seem to be
growing and gaining in strength. A year ago, I called for more
movements to rise up. But not in my wildest dreams did I expect that one
year on, protest movements the world over would be making their voice heard as they are – and
making the front pages. Let´s build on the current momentum. Let´s redouble our
efforts and make sure that soon - a year from now? - governments and
corporations will have no choice but to finally deliver the future we want.

Donnerstag, 20. Juni 2013

Like I am sure many of you, my mind has been in Istanbul in recent weeks.

Especially so, because I was inspired by Gezi Park already last November. I was speaking at a conference on global governance in Istanbul arguing that "Achieving effective environmental governance is ... above all about changing power relations. ... It is about making the argument for change as much on the street as it is in the corridors of power." (see below). When I finished it was pointed out to me by the audience that Gezi Park and the wider urban transformation of the Taksim area was ripe to be the kind of conflict about power and who rules that I was referring to. And the whole world got to see how right they were over the last few weeks!

I have been inspired by the Istanbul protests not least for the many acts of day to day kindness that Jen, a team member of mine based in Istanbul, describes in her powerful blog: Home at Last in Istanbul.

I post my reflections on international global governance here as a tribute to all who stand up for their rights in Turkey. This article has recently been published in Turkish as part of a book documenting the conference (I will provide a link to the book once I learn of one).

So: Where are the Teeth?

Or why the weakness of International Environmental
Governance is a question of power

The politics of the environment face a paradox. While
climate damaging emmisions and the use of resources globally continue to rise,
solutions are also starting to become mainstream. Unlike twenty years ago, we
know today that renewable energy, for example, is not a pipe dream but a fast
growing global industry. Indeed, solutions for most if not all envirtonmental
ills are available and affordable, and investments in clean technologies are
rising. At the same time, development in both North and South remains deeply
unsustainable.

One key reason for this paradox is that globally,
environmental governance systems are not as strong as they needs to be. Even where
governments do promote sustainable practices, such as the use of renewables,
they fail to put a decisive end to unsustainable practises. An economy based on
nuclear energy, oil and coal, genetic engineering, toxic chemicals or the
overexploitation of our forests and seas, however, will never be sustainable –
and will not be able to provide prosperity for all in the long term.

Too many governments North and South have effectively
been captured by corporate players benefitting from the destructive status quo.
They are putting the interests of a few above the interests of the many. Asia Pulp and Paper, for example, has
been able to undermine effective forest protection in Indonesia, while Volkswagen has fought against the
climate protection rules in Europe and the US, to name but two. The finance industry, furthermore, has succeeded
in making the taxpayer pay for its bad decisions and is stopping governments from effectively regulating global financial
markets.

For the environment not to be overexploited, and people
to prosper in the long term, governments must put regulations in place that
secure the public good and give the institutions tasked to implement these
regulations the tools to do so. It sounds simple, but it does mean changing
some fundamentals in the way we govern our planet.

It is important to remember that global regulations with
teeth are not impossible. The World Trade Organization (WTO), for example, can
impose punitive tariff fines on countries flouting it´s rules. So while the
negotiations to further liberalize global trade remain stalled, many disuptes
are being taken tot he WTO as the existing powers oft he global trade
institution persist – and the WTO remains the most powerful global governance
instrument available.

In contrast, environmental and sustainable development governance is not
effective. Experts agree that while there are many institutions dealing with
social agendas or the environment, they are not coordinated, lack adequate
powers, and are much weaker than economic and trade bodies. Bodies such as the
UN Environment Programme can only plead, coach and capacity build, where the
World Trade Organization can impose punitive tariff measures on those breaking their
rules.

The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) was created as a
compromise at the Stockholm Conference on Human Environment in 1972. Many
attempts have been made since then to strengthen it. But while we have a UN
agency even for tourism, UNEP remains a mere Programme, with very few offices
around the world.

Similarly, the main international forum established in 1992 to deal
with “sustainable development” is the Commission on Sustainable Development
(CSD). The CSD was tasked to monitor the implementation of Agenda 21, the main
outcome document of the Rio Earth Summit in1992. Sadly the CSD, which convened
for two weeks every year since Rio, was never more than a talking shop. It
could do nothing to actually deliver sustainable development. At best, it has
been at times a forum where new ideas have been shared.

At the Rio+20 UN Summit in June 2012, governments buried the CSD and
pledged to replace it with a new „high level“ body on sustainable development.
As things stand however, there is no guarantee that that new body will be any
more powerful than the CSD was. The risk of it being merely another talking
shop is very real.

Rio+20 also failed to upgrade the UN Environment Programme to specialised
agency status – a UN Environment Agency - which would formally upgrade it
within the global UN structure (a move which has been under discussion globally
for decades). The world therefore still lacks a global authority on the
environment, especially one that has the power to monitor the implementation of
global environmental agreements – and to sanction those failing to live up to
their promises. However, UNEP was at
least strengthened at Rio+20. Following the Rio decisions, the UN General
Assembly in December 2012 finally agreed, for example, that UNEP will receive “secure,
stable and increased financial resources from the regular budget of the UN“.This
at last ends a sad state of affairs, where UNEP needed to pass around a
´begging bowl´ each year to secure vital funds for environmental protection. It
was also welcome news that Brazil and China both used the occasion of Rio+20 to
pledge significant additional sums to strengthen UNEP. This is recognition of
the important role UNEP plays in emerging economies – and could possibly be a
sign of countries such as Brazil and China starting to see the environment as
an area where it is worth exerting „soft power“ globally – and may be even, at
times, take the lead. This will be an area of environmental governance worth
watching in coming years. Will Turkey take a similar approach and start
contributing to UNEP more pro-actively?

For sustainability to thrive, we need much more than a strengthening and
upgrading of existing institutions such as UNEP: We need global rules that
change power dynamics and investment incentives. Environmental regulations
(including Multilateral Environmental Agreements, MEAs) need much stronger
sanction mechanisms. They need the ability to effectively penalise countries
such as Canada, for example, who simply ignore the commitments they made under
the Kyoto Protocol (on climate change). Global rules on corporate
accountability and liability are also a must in order to ensure that damaging
people and the environment is no longer a free for all, but has real costs. At
the Johannesburg Earth Summit in 2002, governments acknowledged the need for
global rules for global corporations. At Rio+20, however, they only called for
slight – and voluntary – improvements in the way that corporations report their
social and environmental impacts. A binding global instrument that ensures full
liability for any social or environmental damage global corporations cause
therefore stays high on any governance reform list. Indeed, it is a fundmental
test of whether governments want to set rules for people and planet or abandon
responsibility to a free market focussed on short-term gain.

Sustainable development cannot become a reality in a world in which
short-term bets by the financial markets are all-powerful. Strong controls of
financial markets are therefore an integral part of the global governance
reform required. New fiscal instruments, such as a Financial Transaction Tax,
need to be adopted to slow harmful speculation and deliver much needed finance for development and environmental
protection. A complete social and environmental review of the global trade
system is also long overdue.

So why are these steps not being taken? That´s where we have to return to
the question of power. Post Hurricane Sandy, even the vast majority of
Americans are supportive of effective climate action. The fossil fuel industry,
however, has captured too many governments in North and South. On Capitol Hill,
just like in Caracas, Brasilia, Ankara or New Delhi, the oil, coal and gas
industries rule, not the people. Even measures like cutting fossil fuel
subsidies are therefore unable to find majorities. Governments, for now, fear
Shell and Exxon more than their average citizen.

Achieving effective environmental governance is therefore above all about
changing power relations. It is about building a movement powerful enough to
force governments to act in the public interest. It is about building alliances
between grassroots initiatives and global organizations. It is about making the
argument for change as much on the street as it is in the corridors of power.

Only if we change power relations, will we be able to transform global
governance systems and get environmental governance bodies with real teeth,
comparable to those of the WTO. The current lack of teeth of environmental
bodies is a symptom of environmental interests not being strong enough - yet - within
the global political system. No expert commission or think tank proposal will
be able to change much until these power fundamentals are addressed.

Montag, 17. Juni 2013

The wonderful colleagues over at Greenpeace UK asked me to write a blog on this year´s G8, so here goes:

As leaders
of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
Russia, the USA and the UK descend on Northern Ireland for their yearly G8
jamboree, even the most conservative of bodies are calling for urgent action on
climate change. The World Bank, for one, has made it clear that the 4 degree warmer world we are heading towards if we fail to act urgently is not a place any of us want
to be. And the International Energy Agency has just reminded the world that the vast majority of oil, coal and gas reserves
need to stay under the ground if we want life on earth to be pleasant rather
than chaotic (a long overdue recognition of the „carbon logic“).

Yet,
if you look at the G8 summit´s website, climate change is consipicuous in its
absence. That did not used to be so. Back in 2007, 2008 or 2009, for example, climate was a key
issue these countries fought over. Now it reportedly took heavy lobbying from Germany and
France for
„greenest government ever“ Cameron to even agree to talk about climate change at
all. With such bad preparation and lack of political capital being invested in
getting the G8 to send a leadership signal on climate, it´s hard to see how the
Summit can produce anything but meaningless platitudes.

-set out clearly how existing commitments
to finance climate action, adaptation and ending deforestation will be met and

-how much „climate finance“ each G8
leaders will make available for countries in need between 2013-2015. It should

-commit to innovate ways of generating
the money urgently needed to fight poverty and climate change, including making
the international shipping and aviation industries pay for their excessive
damage to our climate, taxing financial transactions and redirecting the absurd
amount currently being spent on fossil fuel subsidies to financing the energy
revolution we need. As a German it makes my blood boilthat even a country like Germany spends
6.6 billion US $ on financing climate destruction
through fossil fuel subsidies (but has only pledged some 500 million in terms
of financial support to those countries that need support to act).

While they are at it, G8 leaders also need to
show that they are serious about agreeing a new, legally binding, fair global
treaty on climate change at the UN climate summit 2015 in Paris. To be
credible, they need to deliver a peak in climate damaging emissions before 2020
and therefore need to set out immediate steps by each G8 nation to step up their
efforts between now and 2020.

I am not holding my breath, but you are
allowed to wake me up any time of night if you hear rumours of the G8 agreeing
to such an action agenda.

I am,
by the way, not for a moment saying that the issues this summit will focus on instead of climate change –
trade, tax compliance and transparency - are not important. The free trade
agenda the G8 still holds onto, though, is likely to make our environmental vows worse, not better. And it´s odd that the transparency
discussion is not being linked to climate change. After all, climate change is
a driver for „land grabbing“ and initiatives such as the „Publish What you Pay“ initiative, however welcome, are all too often about
payments that facilitate the extraction of the very oil, gas and coal reserves
that we know we need to find ways of leaving in the ground ...

That
said, on tax this G8 may yet deliver something positive for people and planet.
I can only salute the excellent work done by other civil society groups on the
outrage of corporate tax dodging. Their campaign work has indeed resulted in
the „highest pressure yet on the tax dodgers“ this week. Corporations
avoiding taxes is not only plainly unfair, it also results in there being less
money available to tackle climate change, poverty and to pay for other vital
public service. So here is to hoping that public pressure will result in a real
step forward on ending tax evasion. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Frankly,
the G8 should have an interest in delivering something on tax compliance as doing
so could allow them to argue that the G8 is not completely irrelevant in a
multi-polar world. For the climate, the importance of the G8 is not in doubt. For
starters, the G8 nations still emit a huge amount of all climate damaging gases
worldwide (and have emitted the vast majority historically). And while everyone who has
a high carbon footprint needs to act no matter where they live (from Manila to
New York), there is no question that if the G8 nations sent a signal of
leadership on climate change that would be a huge deal. It could change the
„you go first“ dynamics of the climate negotiations and send clear signals to
markets and investors that they cannot assume that fossil fuels will be a good
long term investment.

I
am not holding my breath. But especially if our leaders fail us – again - in
Northern Ireland this week, I am asking for your help. We must hold their feet
to the fire at home and make them act. One first opportunity to do so will be
the End the Age of Coal action day on June 29th. Join in and remind
world leaders that we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground if we are to have
a decent future for all.

Introducing myself, Daniel Mittler

I am the Political Director of Greenpeace International, heading their Political and Business Unit. I am leading a global team of specialists working on issues ranging from protecting the High Seas to disrupting dirty business models and toxic trade deals. We are responsible for internal strategy advice to campaigns and external representation at global political and business fora. I am a member of the Global Program management team and from September 2014 to June 2015 also managed the Actions and Science Units (two of my favourite parts of Greenpeace). I have also served on the senior management team of Greenpeace’s global forest campaign and on the European Executive Committee.

From 1997-2000 I was a researcher at the Bartlett School of Planning at University College London. I was looking at achieving sustainabilty in cities; mainly because I love cities. The year before, I was living in Bonn serving my country by writing press releases for the youth-wing of Friends of the Earth Germany (BUNDjugend).

Berlin, where I have lived - with a couple of breaks (in Oxford and Amsterdam) - since 2000, is now the (other) place I call home. To be precise: Kreuzberg.

I love kayaking, reading, going to the theatre and cinema, hiking, music (I still try to play the cello) - all the usual middle class stuff. I have a way too loud laugh, but at least I manage to laugh. What really excites me is making the world at the same time a more just and greener place - and creating spaces where people can get active. So, do something!